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Hi Everyone,
The other day I headed out to get some pictures of the garden and I found Sunny Boy relaxing in the walkways. Relaxing in the garden does sound like a wonderful thing to do, but most of my garden time is spent rearranging things—moving weeds from the dirt to the garbage, mulch from a pile to a garden bed, leaves from under the chestnuts to the compost bin and from the compost bin to a garden bed, plants from the greenhouse to the garden beds—yep, constantly rearranging! A few weeks ago we got all the daffodil bulbs planted—but they needed to be fertilized and mulched. So on Monday we top dressed the beds with chicken compost and then we covered that with leaves out of the leaf compost bin. The daffodils are now safely tucked into bed and all we have to do is wait for them to sprout and bloom. While we were getting the leaves the Jersey bulls—Dijon (the Papa bull) and Milkyway (the nine month old young bull) were mooing at us over the fence. One of the heifers in another field was in heat and they were more interested in her than the green grass that was surrounding them. Monday was the first day for us to put the Jersey milk cows in a field with luscious green winter grass. As the week went by we were excited to see a little increase in the amount of milk we got each day—twelve gallons is better than eight or ten. When we were done mulching Steve and I weeded in the garden tunnel—but we didn’t get very far. After lunch I headed back to the garden tunnel and Steve and Mom headed to the heifer barn to remove the feeders and replace them with hay racks. We have so many heifers that they needed more space so that they could all get to the hay at the same time. I spent hours weeding—but I do not believe that I got any further than ten feet, and the rows are fifty feet long. Papa spent his afternoon getting straw to cover the concrete in the heifer barn and picking up the last of the parts to the Gravely. The dump bed had rusted out and the fenders and hood were getting brittle—so he had the dump bed remade and everything coated with some heavy duty bed liner paint.
Tuesday morning we had just finished milking the cows when Papa arrived having finished his chores. His timing was perfect for we were trying to tame Mabel and get her used to coming into the milking parlor—because she is due to calve in two weeks. We started working with her nine months ago—but we were not very successful. We could get her to follow a bucket and she would eat out of the bucket if we were holding it, but we couldn’t lead her into the milking stall. We did a few times and managed to get a halter on her—but that was the last time. We were not consistent with it, and so we got nowhere. Now we are desperate—if we want to milk her we have to get her to come into the milking parlor. Mom and I had managed to coax her into the parlor on Monday—twice, but both times as soon as we tied her in she would turn around and crawl under the bar and exit out through the middle section. No matter what we did Mom and I could not keep her from crawling out—she is a small cow. When Papa showed up Tuesday we were delighted and immediately asked him to help us keep Mabel in the stall while she ate. He tried, but she was too determined. His first suggestion was to sell her—which is what we had to do with the last heifer. Needless to say, I ended up in tears. We haven’t had much success training heifers in the last two years—maybe since Eli quit working and I haven’t had a strong man helping me in the milking parlor. The only ones we have managed to train—were those that evidently were born trained. The first day we brought America into the milking area she walked right into the stall and I tied her in and she was perfect ever since—but that isn’t reality with most heifers. Her sister Jam on the other hand had to be pulled in by a rope every day for a week—but then she came in perfectly every day after that. Mabel is very sweet—but too cautious. When we do get her in the stall you can pet her all over and she doesn’t kick—the problem is getting her into the stall. Well, even though poor Papa had a major headache, he didn’t give up on Mabel and he and Mom spent the rest of the day working with Mabel. They took her to the panel pens and put a new halter on her—the old one fell off her nose within 24 hours after we put the halter on her and has hung around her neck ever since—because we couldn’t catch her to fix it. With a new halter securely on her they tied her to the panels and let her hang out for a little while, then they decided to walk her to the milking parlor and get her used to going in to be fed. On the way to the parlor though she wiggled out of her halter, and they had to round her up again. This time she knew what was coming, and wasn’t so easily persuaded to go into the panel pens. In the end they did manage to get her into the stall—but she didn’t want to eat. They worked with Mabel off and on all day.
In the meantime, Steve and I headed to the garden. I was so discouraged from our “lack of progress” the day before that I was determined to weed someplace that we could get a lot accomplished in a little bit of time. On Monday our load of woodchips had been delivered, so if we could get the walkways in the Mid-West Garden bed weeded and the five beds weeded by the end of the day I would be delighted. That area of the garden is only 16 feet long and 20 feet wide and it houses five 30 inch beds. The weeds in that section of the garden disappeared quickly and before I knew it we were filling the walkways with fresh woodchips. By the end of the day (and we did have to take a break to package eggs and I had to teach piano lessons) we had three out of the five beds weeded, and three out of the six walkways weeded and mulched. On Thursday we had the opportunity to finish the other two beds and get all the walkways mulched. We truly turned a bit of chaos into a beautiful piece of art. The spinach and the onions had disappeared under a lush carpet of winter weeds—chickweed, henbit, and Carolina geranium to name a few. When we were done there was nothing left but spinach and onions!
Wednesday morning was progressing nicely—we were pretty much on time and things were going smoothly. Well, they were going smoothly until Steve came up and told us that the neighbors Black Angus bull had jumped the fence and was in the field with our heifers—and one of them was in heat. I ran to call the neighbor (who happened to be in Jacksonville for business—so that didn’t help, except that he told me to either chase the bull back over the fence or load him up in our cattle trailer and take him to the Sale Barn—which is where he and a bunch of the other bulls were heading on Sunday because they were causing problems on their farm too). Steve ran for Papa, and Mom untied the milk cows that we had just finished milking and secured the parlor so that the cows couldn’t come back and get into the feed cans. Steve and Papa made it to the pen first, and by the time I headed out Mom was just getting there herself. The goal was to get our heifers out of the field, and leave the bull in the field—but he was in hot pursuit of his new found girlfriend. It took a few times going around the field before Papa and Steve managed to separate the bull from the heifers, and then Mom and I were like cheerleaders encouraging the heifers to hurry up and come out the gate. In the meantime, Dijon—our Papa bull was not the happiest of campers that another bull was messing with his girls and he stood at the fence belly aching—mooing and bellowing loudly. Once we got the heifers out of the field, then Papa began to chase the young bull toward the fence—where he had come from. Thankfully he was a young bull—though quite big (twice the size of our Jerseys), and he was afraid of Papa. It took a few laps back and forth but finally the bull jumped the fence to get on the other side—where he belonged. Mom and I ran after the heifer to find out which one was in heat: to see if it was 299 (Mya) who was needing to move in to be bred by Dijon anyway, or to figure out which heifer it was so that if she did get bred by the neighbors bull we would know who she was. It ended up not being 299, but 252 (Macy). We hope that she didn’t get bred by the Angus bull—for the calf could be too big for her to deliver. When we got back to the milking parlor our friends the Cranes were there—and Samuel who has done some videos for us had just missed a perfect video. Why are the camera’s never rolling when real adventurous life happens?
Later that day as Mom and I were waiting for a fellow farmer who was coming over to pick up some minerals, we decided to quickly head out and lock up the ducks and bring in the calves for the night—it was 5:00 and if we waited until Josh arrived we would never get the calves separated. We got the ducks locked up with no problem, and then we set up the panels at the barn to guide the calves into the panel pens. We then headed down field to get the calves—we had one problem though, the day before we had weaned Milkyway and the night before Emma (his mama) had come up with the calves and Milkyway had jumped the fence to nurse and then Papa had to run Emma back down the lane to the herd and get Milkyway back in with the sheep and Patriot (another young bull). We didn’t have time to take Emma back and we didn’t want to have to worry about Milkyway—so Mom stayed at the wires while I went to round up the calves. I had no problem getting the calves, but as they got closer to the wires they started to scatter one at a time because Mom had to shoo Emma away. As one calf would bolt, I would run after it and bring it back to the other calves, and then another would bolt and I would chase after it—and then the whole herd of calves bolted and we had to start all over. Emma had left the wires by now, so I worked to shoo her to the other end of the field while Mom rounded back up the calves. Then Emma headed for the back of the field and I helped Mom bring in the calves. We got about halfway to the wires when Emma turned and ran down the fence line—for the open wires. We tried our best to hurry the calves, but some insisted on walking slowly. We did our best, but Emma still beat everyone out of the field. Then the goal was to drive the calves up the lane faster than Emma so that we could get ahead of Emma and turn her around—but some insisted on walking slowly. Then we saw Milkyway coming across his field to meet his mama in the lane, and we pushed the calves harder—to no avail. When we got close enough I hopped out of the golf-cart and was scared to death as I scared to death Rosy the new heifer in the herd who was following us up the lane (growing up isn’t always easy when you have to leave your friends behind and the new gang doesn’t exactly like you). Rosy was trying to get back to the heifer field—but it was time for her to move in with the bull and the other Jersey cows. Then Rosy darted past us and joined the calves—and they were now running and they all went into the panel pens and headed for the barn. I managed to get in and close the gate behind the calves before Rosy headed into the barn too. Then we ran Rosy back out to the lane and she ran down to join Emma. We were very thankful that Milkyway had not jumped the fence yet and we sped off quickly to shoo Emma and Rosy back down the lane. By the time we got back to let the calves out of the barn and got them fed our company had arrived. We had a good visit with him as we swapped farming stories. I think that swapping farming stories is better than swapping “BIG fish stories” because ours are real and it doesn’t take much to top the others story. We told the story of the neighbor’s dogs that killed 21 of our rams the first year we lived here, and he told the story of his neighbors’ dogs that killed 120 of his broiler (meat) chickens that were to be processed the next day—that was thousands of dollars lost and eight weeks of moving chicken pens wasted. Then there was our story of the bulls that tore down all our hot wire fencing one year, and his story of his pigs that escaped and destroyed his hot wire netting. Yes, we farmers have stories to tell!
When we finished milking the cows Friday morning Mom and Papa headed to the calf barn to attach metal fence panels to the walls to keep the calves from eating the plywood—of which they had been enjoying like candy, but is something that can make them very sick. After lunch Mom and I headed to town to get some shopping done. It was probably the first time that I had really experienced “food supply chain shortages”. We buy very little frozen vegetables—mostly broccoli and green peas. To my dismay at Publix I found that the “Greenwise” veggie shelves had been replaced with Bird’s Eye veggies. I walked up and down the aisle looking for the organic vegetable section. I finally found it—but there were only a few bags of cauliflower and a few bags of green beans. I didn’t need the beans, but I did grab some cauliflower. Then Mom and I decided to go back to the produce section and get some fresh broccoli and we could freeze it—but the price was twice the amount as the broccoli that we had just bought at the local fresh produce store. We then decided to go back to the produce store and buy a case of broccoli—but to my dismay I am still without green peas. At least the garden is full of greens right now. When we got home from town I started right away on dinner (chili) while Mom put the groceries away. We had a Graduation party to attend at 7:00. One of my piano students just graduated from high school, and her older sister who I taught years ago just graduated from college with a degree in music.
Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day and Mom and I spent our afternoon outside—although I didn’t head outside until after I did my ironing and listened to a few sessions of a Flower Summit. Different speakers were speaking on different aspects of growing and selling flowers. Mom worked on repairing some birdhouses—and this morning the bluebirds were glad to have their house back. I worked in the green house potting up snapdragons. I had three trays with 72 cells each full of snapdragons that have needed to be potted up for the last month or two. I managed to get two of the trays potted up, and now I have one more to do.
This morning as we were getting breakfast we were greatly entertained as the neighbor’s cowboy rounded up their beef cows. The cowboy was on horseback and he had about six dogs helping him. For a little while, the cowboy had his horse stand still and he just sat there while the dogs circled the cows around and around and around until they had them completely under control then the cowboy moved his horse and the cows started heading out of the field. It was so fascinating to watch. There has been many a time on our farm when we have asked, “Where’s the cowboys?” That was usually when Mom, my two sisters and I were trying to round up all the cows for the vet. We won’t have to worry anymore about the neighbor’s bulls jumping our fence to get to our cows or heifer—for the cowboy got the bulls all rounded up.
Yesterday morning Papa came up to the milking parlor while we were milking—and he had a wee little black ewe lamb. Mom spent close to an hour with the lamb in the pasture hoping that some mama would claim it—but no one did. Therefore, we ended up with our first bottle lamb. We took her to church with us since we had to feed her every four hours, and the children were ecstatic to get to pet her, or even walk around and have her run along beside them. One of the ladies at church asked if she could please take it home and bottle feed it for us for the next two months—and we gladly took her up on it. I think that she and her husband shall spoil it greatly!
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare